Sophie Blackall Illustration

Monday, June 11, 2012

Mbanza-Ngungu
was once a colonial resort. There was a grand hotel called the
Cosmopolite which is now roofless and crumbling, used as a communal
clothes drying area. I wasn't allowed to take a picture. There are old
villas too, perched above the valley.

Apparently
there is an occasional train on these tracks but it's hard to believe.
We glimpsed the station where rusted trains lay on their backs, wheels in
the air, or on their sides grown over with vines.